you claim within 14 weeks from the date your partner died, to be paid from the date you claim

For our purposes, a person is considered to have been your partner if you and the person were:

married

in a registered relationship, or

living together as a couple

Registered relationship

A registered relationship is one that is registered under certain state and territory laws that allow for registration of relationships.

When you're not eligible

You cannot get Bereavement Allowance if you are already getting another type of income support payment. However, if you are getting another payment, it may be more beneficial for you to transfer to Bereavement Allowance. Contact us to talk about your options.

To qualify for Bereavement Allowance you need to meet income and assets tests.

Income

Your income affects the amount of payment you get. Income includes money earned from employment and money earned from investments. It also includes money from outside Australia.

Allowable amount of income

You can have income up to $164 per fortnight without having your Bereavement Allowance payments reduced.

If your income is more than the allowable amount, your allowance will be reduced by 50 cents for every dollar you receive over the limit.

If you’ve lived or worked in any country outside Australia we may ask you to take steps to get a pension from the other country and tell us the outcome. We can help you to claim any pensions from outside Australia.

Related subjects

This information was printed Saturday 10 December 2016 from
humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/bereavement-allowance
It may not include all of the relevant information on this topic. Please consider
any relevant site notices at humanservices.gov.au/siteinformation
when using this material.